He wadded up the letter and threw it across the room, whereupon Pebbles leaped on it. Josh cursed, got up and took it out of her drooly mouth, smoothed it out and looked at it. Some of Lauren’s handwriting smeared, which made him feel like utter shit.

He pulled out the ironing board and iron and smoothed the letter out. “I’m sorry,” he said. Pebbles wagged her tail and barked.

He knew Lauren wanted the best for him. He also knew that a lot of her suggestions had done some good. Seeing his father had put to rest some of his feelings. Kissing Cammie had been pleasant enough. Buying new clothes had brought Radley into his life.

But leave the apartment where they lived together? Where they’d made love and cooked and watched movies and figured out her care? He couldn’t imagine it. He didn’t want to feel more distant from her.

A new couch and bed was one thing. A new place? Every corner of the apartment was infused with her. It was a shrine in some ways—the photos of her, the paintings she’d chosen, the towels, the napkins. Everything was a reminder of loss as well as of Lauren. Anything new was similarly in her memory—I bought this when my wife had been dead for six months and four days. I bought this to hang where our wedding photo was. It hadn’t erased her in any way; it had made her absence all the more noticeable.

Time for the punching bag now.

“I DON’T WANT to live somewhere else,” he said to Ben a few hours later.

“Yeah, those fists are telling a story,” said Ben, smiling kindly. “Try to wrap up next time.”

They were sitting in the basement of the Kims’ house, Ben’s man cave all these years, a place where Josh had spent many hours building things from the bits of metal and wood Ben offered him. The room smelled faintly of spices with a hint of smoke from their fireplace upstairs. It was one of the places Josh felt safest in the world.

But not tonight.

Ben handed him a length of wire, thin enough that Josh could twist it. Yes. It was good to have something to do with his hands. Better than a fidget spinner, anyway. Ben knew him well.

“You’ll never be ready, son. But you’ll do it anyway. And after some time passes, it won’t feel so wrong.”

“I don’t want time to pass,” Josh admitted in a low voice, not looking up. “Every day is a step away from her.” His voice broke, just a little. The image of her last day flickered at the edges of his brain, and he shoved it away. Twisted the wire. Bent it. Threaded it through a loop. Lauren on the beach, on the bed, on their wedding day. Anything but that last day.